Out of Hell
by DieInVinter
Summary: What if Jeremy had saved Brigitte?
1. Library

Jeremy doesn't seem to show up too much in fanfics, so I thought I'd write about him. He's half Boy Scout, half horndog ... there's something interesting right there. RIGHT THERE, I tell you! Yes. Anyway, this is a rather short introduction to what will hopefully be a much longer story. Comments/criticisms are very much appreciated.

Library

She watched the skin separate and bleed detachedly, like somebody else was holding the scalpel, and making the incisions. The ones she'd been timing since she'd left had scarred over in an uneven line up the inside of her forearms. Every time she completed this ritualistic experiment, she went into the same strange trance. Somebody else was injecting the poison, now, and somebody else was sitting here in this anonymous bathroom, rocking the bandaged limb back and forth, waiting for the dosage to fully hit her again.

-----

Brigitte pulled out an aging copy of Bloodletting from its place in between Diseases of the Blood and In the Year 1800, thumbing through it as she settled down on the hard library floor. She hadn't found too much that would help here, but attempting to find a cure was better than sitting around idly until the virus couldn't be staved off any longer. There had to be some way, and she'd find it if she just kept reading, and reading, and reading. There'd be some sort of … miracle. Her stomach turned at that word as the thought reverberated. Pam used to say that word. And now, for once she wanted her mother to be right about something.

The unpleasant sound of a throat clearing cued her to look up at somebody peering over the end of the bookshelf.

"I'm onto you."

The librarian, Jeremy. How … perfect. She shot him an annoyed stare, which he disregarded, pulling out a random book and thumbing through it while he spoke. She dropped her gaze and listened to his voice, which was so normal it almost didn't fit. "You come in here late at night, you stay until all the other avid readers are gone. You're attracted to me, but you fear rejection." She looked back up at him, trying to appear inquisitive. "So you bide your time, just kind of waiting for that perfect moment. Don't worry; I've been dealing with this all my life." His smile quickly disappeared. "I'm kidding."

That's _exactly_ it. She tucked Bloodletting under her arm, along with a thinner book she'd been perusing earlier about transformations in mythology, and walked past him.

"Your fly's open." She approached the main desk, and the sound of a zipper followed her. He trotted over to the desk on which she set down the books. Hastily pulling out her library card, she didn't even look at him, silently panicking over the pressing need to leave and get back to the room

"Okay … perfect." He picked up the thicker volume, glancing at the gory cover. "Yeah," he said, scanning it. "Yeah, I indulge in the occasional bloodletting myself," he remarked with the faintest hint of sarcasm. _Some people try a little too hard, _she thought to herself. "Okay. Brigitte Fitzgerald." He looked down at the screen of the institutionally grey computer, as he drew a deep breath, clearly concerned. "Unfortunately, you have quite the overdue account." She eyed the exit door. She didn't really need these books, time was running out. "And technically, if you have more than six dollars owing, I'm just –" She walked briskly away, hearing "Okay, well, see you later," as she yanked open the door, and quickly descended the stairs, pulling on her coat. Cold air rushed into her face as she stepped outside, maintaining her restrainedly frantic pace. She heard the door swing open again, followed by muffled laughter, but when she turned around, it was only two other women leaving the library, headed in the opposite direction. Some steam issued from a vent in the side of a building she was just about to pass, but something implored her to stop, and look into the alleyway beside it, which stretched on for a few meters, losing itself in darkness. She thought she felt something's presence, and the wind stirred her hair as she tried to determine whether it was the product of a fearful imagination or an actual threat. She forced herself to push past it, past the orange neon sign, and towards the motel parking lot. Room 34.

Unwrapping the bandage from her left arm, she ran her finger down a perfectly healed scar, the newly formed skin of which had healed in a considerably less pale tone. The cheap digital clock, 12:23. She flipped through a few notebook pages and recorded "4 hrs 32 mins" in one column of a lengthy chart, and "Healed" in the next.

_You're healing faster, aren't you?_ Drew a fingernail to her mouth, then stood up and turned away from the table. _That shit's not a cure, you know. It just slows the transformation. _Pulled open the refrigerator door and look down at the vials of purple liquid, the only contents. _It doesn't stop it, B. Nothing will stop it. _Syringe needle poked into the top of one of the vials. _What are you doing? You already dosed today. _Clumsily tied a tourniquet around her upper arm. _It's poison, B. You can't keep shooting it. _Syringe drops, needle catching in the carpet. Into bed, taking the toothbrush from the bedside table. Ginger falls, out of nowhere. _Remember that game we used to play when we were little? The one where we would make ourselves hold our breath until we passed out? _She laughed, a little bitterly. _Then you'd always get scared and call Mom, and I'd get in trouble? _She paused, watching Brigitte's anxious eyes as she prepared for the monkshood to wash through. _That game really sucked._ Brigitte rose shakily from the bed and walked to a wide window by the side of the door. _Do you feel it? _Only a few lights had been left on, but the parking lot stayed lit. When she looked behind her, Ginger was back again, her usually piquant face panicked. _You're not alone. He's found you again. _The next few minutes were a rush of collecting – clothes, a photograph of the sisters, and the monkshood.

The door opened for her to run away through, to run anywhere, and she was looking at Jeremy again.

"Hi, this is a major breach of library policy, but I brought you the books." She pulled the toothbrush out, and found that she had to draw more air into her lungs, because they were leaking, and it hurt, and she didn't know what was happening. He looked over her shoulder and into the now-vacant room. Well, vacant except for the syringe that was still sticking out of the carpet. "Are you okay? What did you take?" She fell forward into him, felt herself being carried. "Okay. Come on, come on. Get in the truck. Watch your head. I'm gonna get you some help, okay?" She dragged herself into the passenger's seat as he ran around to the other car door. "Okay, okay. You're gonna be okay, okay? I'm gonna get you some help." He fumbled with her seatbelt, clicked familiarly as the clasp fastened.

And then the world roared. The car accelerating, the crunch as something passed under it. Violent, desperate movements, and then perfect stillness.


	2. Safe

Safe

_Long is the way that out of Hell leads up to light._

Brigitte pressed down by pounding, pulsing silence.

(violent, visceral nightmare, shrieking virus, burning, always faint burning)

Did she ever hate as viciously as Ginger? Had it somehow become their shared habit over time, or was her own hatred cultivated somewhere beyond the dark small space between?

(angelic noise, relentless grinding of machines, Fitzgeralds caught somewhere inside, snagged in the gears, ripped, mutilated)

They'd spent hours shut inside with photography, tricks of light and shadow, morbid theatrics. Rain will drip into the teacups, dilute the bleach, dilute the poison, slide gently down her sister's pretty impersonating face like tears she didn't have, didn't ever have for anyone except herself.

_I can't be like this I can't be like this I can't be like this I can't be like this I can't be –_

"Wake up, sleepyhead. It's time."

-----

"Are you …" That same voice from before, concerned, fearful, and hopeful. Brigitte's eyes fluttered open. She didn't want to move and discover the paralysis she was sure she'd suffered. "You … overdosed." The memory hit her in a wave of cold insanity, and she felt sick to her core. And worse, she'd been found. She had no idea how she'd deal with that, as she'd grown so used to her newfound independence it had seemed like she'd lived that way all her life. She'd discovered quite quickly that she didn't need anybody's assistance to simply exist, contrary to everything she'd ever been taught.

The blinds were drawn, frail light seeping through. The room was small and bland, but well-kept. Brigitte supposed it was the very early hours of morning.

She fished her semi-conscious mind for a response or excuse, but it offered her nothing. Someone or something had painfully sandpapered the inside, leaving only smooth, blank skull.

"You have to tell me what you're taking." The wounds on his face leapt out at her. How could she not have noticed them before? Was injury that commonplace now?

"What happened to your face?" she asked, lowly, both to avoid his question and to satisfy her curiosity.

He paused, taken aback by the inquiry. Turning slightly away, he grazed the surface of the laceration with tense fingers.

"You don't remember …"

The smooth skull shrieked with half-lost memory, Ginger's fingernails on a chalkboard.

"I was going to get help for you … and something attacked me just as I was getting into the car. I think I ran over it when we were driving away." A flurry of panic arose. "It might have been a coyote, but it seemed too …" He closed his eyes, didn't finish his thought. "I was going to take you to the hospital …"

Brigitte again, couldn't find words. Ginger could create and unfurl lies seemingly without effort, and here she was, struggling. At least she had the oft-cited right to remain silent, as she always had. The one right she could retain, even when life was shattered and her body convulsed with the Curse, or monkshood, or both.

"I don't need to go there," she stated, feigning calmness.

"I saw the syringe. I watched you pass out." He leaned in, eyes pleading despite his attempt at an authoritarian tone. "You need help, Brigitte Fitzgerald."

She started for a moment at the mention of her name, but then recalled the books and the library card. Two could play at this game.

"What I need, Jeremy, is not something that you or any hospital can give me."

"What do you need, then?"

Confusion tore through the white space. She replied with subdued shock. "Right now … I don't know."

-----

Hours slid by, increasing the boredom in increments that had become almost unbearable. She was too fatigued for any movement, save turning to face the wall rather than the chocked full bookshelves and meticulous cleanliness. Ginger came and went, alternately snarling at her for her foolishness and comforting her for her fear.

Jeremy had left for his "day job," which was apparently more pressing than the addict in his room. Ginger pointed this out as soon as the door closed behind him.

"Give him a break, Ginge; he doesn't know what he's in for," Brigitte said weakly, resurfacing from under a thin layer of sleep. The redhead wrinkled her nose, flicking her bored gaze up from her sister to the bookshelves.

"I think he knows exactly what he's in for." She smirked in distaste. "Or hopes he's in for."

"The world isn't nearly as full of rapists as you'd like to think," snapped Brigitte.

"Did you already forget how he stared at you in the library? What he _said to you_?" Brigitte furrowed her brow in irritation and turned on her other side. A rustle of sheets, Ginger's icy whisper in her ear. "They're all the same, Brigitte, and it's never worth it."

"He saved me."

"That thing wasn't going to kill you. You know that."

"At least I'm safe … a little."

"Safe? You think you're SAFE? He could send you to some hospital any time he wants to, and THEN you'll be really, really _safe._" Brigitte buried her head beneath a pillow to escape Ginger's accusations and outrage. It turned from voice to static, roaring in her ears, in her head, until she thought she'd go insane(-er). Finally it ebbed away; Ginger had retreated to lurk in the darker recesses of her sister's subconscious. Brigitte stayed perfectly still, waiting for it to lash back out again, and after a few moments in which she could have sworn her heartbeat ceased, she bolted upright. And noticed that there were absolutely no injuries or aches to speak of. With muted horror, she realized that all results of the attack, presuming that there had been any, had already healed. She couldn't have been here for more than three hours.

Cautiously edging herself upwards to a sitting position, she slid her feet over the edge of the bed, hitting the floor much sooner than she'd expected. Jeremy's bed was just two mattresses stacked in a corner, she thought, blearily amused, and walked over to the shelves, feeling imaginary shards of glass cut into the soles of her feet.

She expected Ginger to comment on it, but no one was there; no apparition, psychological residue, or whisper. Brigitte looked over to the door, irrationally half-expecting to see Jeremy entering the room. When no disturbance had occurred after two minutes of waiting, she pulled out the first comic book she saw.

And abruptly closed it. How could Jeremy have so little shame? She almost felt herself getting angry, but subconsciously opted for embarrassment instead. That was easier to deal with. If Ginger was right in saying that all men were the same, then she couldn't exactly condemn risqué comic books as being a particular downfall of Jeremy and Jeremy alone. It was trivial, after all. It didn't matter. She gave the rest of the spines a sweeping glance, stepped through the hot coals to the door, and tentatively opened it just far enough to glimpse whatever lay outside. In that thin strip of vision, nothing particularly jarring. She slipped on through.

An apartment, like she'd thought. It seemed somehow un-lived in; like Jeremy had moved here years ago and never bothered to unpack. The furniture was stale and lifeless, created with concern for function rather than aesthetics. Not that different from home, really, with the exception of her shared bedroom, the only place in Bailey Downs from which the aura of life -- or rather, death -- ever seemed to emanate. She had loved that room, and it made her nostalgic and faintly ill to think of it now. She shoved the black-and-white television, the hanging bangles, the wall of Polaroids, all to the back of her mind, and stepped cautiously down the short hallway, which ended in a room that was half kitchen and half living space. And spotless, too. She scowled a little at that. It'd be so much easier to hate Jeremy if he was a slob. There was stuff in here; more than the bedroom. The tiny television which looked like it had been scavenged from a dumpster and scrubbed clean was surrounded by four different game consoles, the wires of which were, unsurprisingly, untangled and neatly coiled. The kitchen was cramped and non-descript, and she opened the small fridge tentatively, wondering briefly if she'd be able to hide the vials somehow without Jeremy noticing. But nobody was that clueless.

The phone rang. She'd deal with the fridge issue later.

"Hello? Jeremy?" A small, pertinent female voice carried across the line. "The people at the library weren't returning my calls, so I looked you up in the yellow pages to ask you if you'd gotten the third issue of 'Immortal Wolf Woman' in yet."

Brigitte's heart stopped. Was this somebody's idea of a joke?

… Did they know?

Almost instinctively (she and Ginger had dealt with frequent prank calls), she responded.

"Don't ever call this number again," she growled, slipping the receiver, still emitting endless chatter, back onto the cradle. Immediately, she regretted vocalizing her anger. Her voice may not be overtly feminine, but it would be impossible to confuse with the male librarian's.

_Smart move, B._ Brigitte turned to see Ginger leaning back against the fridge, arms crossed, black sweatshirt casting a dim shadow over her petulant stare. Brigitte swallowed her excuse, and turned to go sit on the beige couch. Ginger looked aside, chewing on imaginary gum, then turned her accusatory gaze back to Brigitte and strode over.

"I don't have anywhere to keep the monkshood," said the brunette, shivering a little in panic. "If I stay here, I'll have to keep them in the fridge, and he'll see them."

"Then, why stay? You were doing just fine before, with that thing always right behind you." Her voice dripped sarcasm, and it made Brigitte slightly nauseous. There was no arguing with the fact that she _was_ safer here, even with the constant threat of convalescence. She speculated that as long as she didn't overdose again, Jeremy wouldn't have the nerve or ambition to turn her in.

"I won't leave until ..." Her throat suddenly constricted at the notion of finally relinquishing her last grip on herself. "If I'm going to continue to stave it off, I'm going to need the monkshood."

_The best place to hide something is in plain sight. Didn't the lives we used to have teach you that much?_

Brigitte nodded slowly, hooked powerlessly in place by Ginger's cornflower blue stare.

_The building is right next to another one, with six inches of space between. For some reason, they still put windows on the side that faces that other building, and there's a narrow ledge a foot or so below it. It's still winter; the air will keep them cold enough out there._

"That window?" she asked, pointing to one of two that provided the dual room with meager light. All that she could see through it was another brick wall. She stood and approached it, the needles beneath her feet growing steadily fewer in number, and heaved the window frame with its peeling, chipped paint upwards. Cold air rushed in and Brigitte smiled to herself, sticking her upper body through and bending downwards to view the ledge. It was there, but couldn't have been more than two inches across. The narrow, filthy alleyway thirty feet below, strewn with broken glass from windows and beer bottles, hardly provided a safe place for the vials to land. She withdrew, and looked around the room, then strode to the kitchen, rifling through the drawers until she came across grey duct tape and a pair of old scissors.

_Hasn't this turned into quite the DIY._

Five cold and uncomfortable minutes later, with the windowsill jutting into her abdomen all the while, the vials were sitting on the ledge beneath the window, taped securely against the wall. Save for one, which she decided to keep on her person or within reach at all times. The room temperature might dull its effect, but lukewarm monkshood was better than no monkshood, should it come to that. And she hoped it wouldn't.

The digital screen on the stove read 4:06 PM. She had no way of knowing when her captor of sorts might return, so she flopped onto the couch, which smelled faintly of some cleaning chemical despite its manifold rips and tears, fished under it for the remote, and switched on the TV. Flipping through channel after inane channel, she finally settled on some science documentary. The fascination science always imbued was fleeting this time, and she began to drift off again. She couldn't remember being this tired in her life, and did not enjoy it at all. Did it have something to do with the attack? She doubted it. She'd been in those kinds of situations plenty of times before, and they never exactly made her want to curl up and sleep afterwards. Regardless of her mind's constant revolt to the idea of sleep, five more minutes of droning had her practically dead to the world.

-----

Jeremy wove through the grocery store, impressing even himself with his calmness. Or maybe what was just his facade of calmness, which he maintained while his world fell into a very quiet calamity. He'd always been frighteningly good at hiding tumultuous emotions and situations. He was harboring a teenage drug addict in his home. He drew a deep breath, and pushed his cart into the check-out line. A _cute_ teenage drug addict, maybe, but that didn't justify much in the eyes of the law.

"They found a trail of blood down by the motel, but no body. It looked as though something had been run over ..."

"Eugh! That's disturbing. Do you think it was someone's dog?"

"They're not sure. Seemed like too much blood for a dog."

The ongoing dialogue between two people in line behind him, whose faces he couldn't even bring himself to look back at, caused Jeremy to realize that to have one's blood freeze wasn't just a saying. He fumbled with his wallet and quickly paid for the two grocery bags of food in cash (he couldn't be bothered to register for a credit card or deal with the payments and debts), scooped them up in his rather skinny arms, and hurried off to his car. He had been surprised to find out that considerably little damage had been done to it. The fender had been bent slightly inwards from the impact with ... well, with whatever that thing had been, but the car was so ugly already that it hardly made a difference. All in all, it didn't give the impression that it had ever been in an accident -- all the damages were of an eventual and underfinanced nature.

He slid the bags into the backseat, slid himself into the front, fastened his seatbelt like he always did, and put the unadorned key into the ignition, but he hesitated before turning it. There was no way they'd know that it was him who hit that thing. No one had witnessed the incident. Brigitte was another matter entirely. Her presence itself didn't need to be kept under wraps, per se -- it was her addiction that he needed to keep anybody else from ever learning of, at least until he had come to a conclusion regarding how to best deal with it. In the meantime, he'd pay off Brigitte's overdue fees himself, and destroy all record that she'd ever been to the library, the management of which hadn't even known that he'd left to give her the books. It wouldn't be too hard; Jeremy by no means considered himself much of a computer nerd, but the library's outdated organizational system didn't exactly make clicking and dropping a file that difficult of a feat. Beyond the completion of these relatively simple matters, he started to feel conflicted towards the situation.

He owed it to Brigitte, to himself, and to God to help her; he knew that instinctively. She might not want his aid, but he was bound by kindness and righteousness to give it to her. But he also knew that the rehabilitation centers, at least around here, did very little to help the people who were sent there. They were practically prisons, under the pretense that the kids would just get better by being locked away. It almost reminded him of the Victorian insane asylums that he'd read about during a rather fleeting fascination with the history of mental health, through which morbidly voyeuristic people willing to pay an entrance fee would be led through to see the "Ophelias," as the young insane women were occasionally called.

He dispelled everything -- he'd deal with it later, later, always later, as the tortured engine sputtered to life for the millionth time. His apartment was across town. Usually he'd walk such a relatively short distance, but the current burden presented a bit of a problem. Even his more miserly inclinations had to be undercut by rationality at some point, and he preferred that to be a point before he passed out from exhaustion. He looked fine, not particular attractive by his own standards, perhaps, but he couldn't complain. However, that did not mean he was physically fit in any sense of the word, because he, quite simply, was not.

Naturally, he indulged in rich food such as the pasta he'd just bought, but it caused no extra pudge. He'd been blessed with a fast metabolism, but the powers that be had dispensed onto him no stamina whatsoever. In any case, he liked pasta. So what? He hoped Brigitte did, too. He hadn't meant to imply that beggars could be choosers, of course. Jeremy smiled bitterly to himself at the hackneyed phrase which rang so hollowly in response to everything he'd experienced in the last 24 hours. Beggars like Brigitte could never choose.

-----

"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to wake you up," Jeremy said as he set the paper bags down on the ugly linoleum countertop. Brigitte stirred and sat up almost immediately, eyeing him with ill-concealed paranoia as he began to put everything he'd bought, package by package, into the small fridge. She felt suddenly relieved that she had taken Ginger's advice and hidden the purple liquid elsewhere. "I hope you like spagh – whoa," Jeremy said involuntarily as he suddenly noticed the girl who had appeared silently next to him. Brigitte stared at him, bored, then examined the packages he'd set on the counter rather than in the fridge. Jeremy smiled weakly, and yet again attempted to engage her in some sort of conversation. "It's not too labor-intensive, if you'd like to help." She nodded with a very serious expression, and the effect was so bizarre and cute that Jeremy had to cough to keep from laughing. "There's a pot in that drawer over there. Fill it up with water from the tap and boil it." Brigitte's eyes followed his gesture, and then returned back to him.

"That's not a drawer. It's a cabinet," she said, again, intensely serious. Jeremy would have been slightly hurt or embarrassed by her observation, had she not pointed it out in such a life-and-death tone. He didn't bother to conceal his laugh with a cough this time.

"_This_ is why I tend to buy the just-add-water kind of food. I don't know the first thing about cooking," confessed Jeremy off-handedly as he cranked the can-opener against a tin of tomato sauce. The faucet started running behind him, and he heard the tapping of what he assumed were Brigitte's fingernails against the countertop as she waited for the pot to fill.

"You know more than most …" Brigitte seemed to gag on her next word, "men."

"Um, thank you, I guess." He set the severed sharp lid carefully aside. He couldn't keep track of how many times he'd cut his hands on those. "My mom passed away when I was sixteen, so I kind of had to learn."

"Oh. I'm sorry." She sounded incredibly genuine, and that scared him a little.

"It's not your fault." He was quiet as he dumped the thick sauce into a pan on the stove. "It's been four years since then. You'd have thought I'd have learned how to make fois gras or something by now!" he joked, hoping that the slight levity in his voice would make her feel more comfortable. He didn't think it did.

"I don't mind," she returned quietly. And it really didn't look like she did. She appeared although she was capable of going a week without any sort of sustenance at all. More like she _had_, actually. She didn't appear particularly indulgent in any way, especially in the most straight-forward sense of gluttony. This train of thought suddenly struck him as ironic when he thought of the syringe in the carpet.

"There, it's boiling. You can put the noodles in, now," he said as he stirred the tomato sauce. "You can turn down the flame, too." She silently acquiesced. A short while later, the two sat across from each other, awkwardly avoiding each other's eyes.

Brigitte picked at her food disinterestedly at first, constantly glimpsing up from the plate to Jeremy. Eventually, she appeared to have given into some internal argument and began eating quickly, if still with some restraint. This pleased Jeremy, but he attempted to keep his satisfaction to himself as he tried to make conversation for what felt like the hundredth time.

"I've never seen you around before a few weeks ago, when you started visiting the library and staying until obscenely late hours." She glared off to her left, probably remembering their first real interaction, during which Jeremy half-jokingly accused her of returning to the library every night with the motive of seeing him there. "You're not from around here, are you?"

Brigitte paused, spaghetti-laden fork held in mid-air. "No …" she said slowly, as if she were chewing on her words as well. "I'm from a suburban shithole." She continued to eat contemplatively. "Probably a hundred miles away by now," she added, almost like an afterthought. The sheer contempt with which she spoke of her hometown shocked Jeremy. While he hadn't exactly enjoyed his youth either, he could still reminisce about it without sounding like he wanted to vomit.

"Which town? Maybe I know where it is." He hoped he hadn't sounded too eager. Brigitte didn't look like she would entertain the notion of being dragged back there, not by a lone librarian, or even the National Guard. She hesitated for a while, presumably decided whether or not to inform him, before responding.

"Bailey Downs."

"Oh." He hadn't expected to be familiar with the place of Brigitte's origins, but it disappointed him anyway when he wasn't. "I haven't heard of it."

"Then, you're fortunate." Again, the unadulterated hatred disarmed him, and he struggled for a grip on the conversation before it subsided into silence again. Anything was better than that. That silence made him feel like her enemy.

"So, have you learned anything useful about … bloodletting?"

He immediately cursed himself. He wasn't supposed to bring up anything which might make her uncomfortable, and something told him that her acquisition of knowledge in that field wasn't a random, self-detached study. She shot him a short, piercing stare, and stood, picking up her plate and silverware to carry to the sink. The sound of running water, again.

"Wait, you don't have to do that!"

_Why are you treating her like a guest? This girl almost got you killed. She's also on drugs, as you seemed to have conveniently forgotten. A fact which you still haven't had the nerve to do anything about._

She dried the plate and set it back in one of what he now knew were termed cabinets, then stood there awkwardly.

_It's now or never._

"Brigitte?" he asked tentatively.

"Jeremy," she responded. "Why am I here?" Something about the way she said it made Jeremy believe that there was no way he could provide a response that satisfied her. Something so hopeless, determined, exasperated. He stood up, and tried desperately to cease his shaking before he slowly approached her.

"You have to tell me." Again, he tried to instill a sense of authority in his voice alongside compassion, although he was entitled to only the latter.

She gave him that fearsome look again, like she was attempting to see into his mind and detect any malice there, and diffuse it by pure will alone. Jeremy was intimidated – by a girl five years his junior – but didn't step back, didn't recoil at all.

"What you saw …" She stopped, and sudden distrust flared up in her eyes, but she shook her head as if to dismiss it and continued. "I've been doing that for three months now." Again, she paused, battling with herself. Something won out inside her and she violently pushed up the left sleeve of her brown sweater, and the sight disturbed him. Ten or so short scars from the crook of the elbow to the middle of her forearm. After the initial shock wore off, he noticed that she'd stayed clear of the vein connecting the forearm and wrist. So, not suicidal. He sighed in relief, having previously concerned himself with the idea that suicidal tendencies came along with the addiction territory. "They keep healing faster, so I have to take more of it." She looked down at the scarred skin, back up at Jeremy, who stared at them, transfixed, then shoved the sleeve back down again. "I dosed twice yesterday. I thought I needed it."

Jeremy always wished he knew how to act during these types of dire revelations. The scars had submerged him in mindless panic, and he struggled to reign in it, deal with this.

"Do you think you … can stop?"

_What the FUCK kind of a question is that?_

She didn't answer, either out of a desire not to dignify such an idiotic question with a response, or because she herself didn't know. She dispelled both these theories by finally speaking.

"What it's like when I do it …" She paused, apparently figuring out how she could best convey her situation, or how much of it she was willing to disclose to him. "I don't … like it. At all." This struck Jeremy as a surprise. Weren't recreational drugs bought and sold and administered in painful solitude primarily for just that, entertainment? "But …" She wrapped her arms around herself, as if to draw into her center and disappear there. "If I stopped … it would be a million times worse." She let loose a ragged breath along with her words. Was this fear of withdrawal? He knew that was common among hard drug users, but Jeremy didn't know how to interpret it.

… Could she be psychotic?

It seemed like more than that. He knew schizophrenics were prone to imagining themselves in elaborate situations, but when Brigitte said that going without it would be worse, he wanted to believe her. She didn't seem crazy; she just seemed trapped.

"Brigitte. What will happen?" He tried to pose the question as gently as possible, knowing he would not get a gentle response. He wanted to hold her, save her from whatever this was, but he didn't dare. Not like this, not when she was so wounded and worried that he risked her lashing out at him.

She struggled with herself again, and attempted to begin explaining it several times and stopping. She sunk slowly to the floor in dread. "What will happen, Jeremy … is hair everywhere but my eyeballs, elongation of my spine till my skin splits, teats, and a growing tolerance, maybe even affection for, the smell and taste of feces ... not just my own … and then, excruciating death." Something tortured and evil writhed inside her, and Jeremy thought it was the most frightening thing he'd ever glimpsed in anyone's eyes. His first instinct was to recoil, but he forced himself not to. If he wanted to earn her trust, he'd have to show her his. Although, the strange threat did make that difficult. He didn't know quite what to make of it. She must have noticed this, because she turned around, holding her head.

She was a run-away, presumably because of her addiction. Perhaps her parents had kicked her out because of it? His stomach sank at the thought. She didn't seem like the delinquent type. Then again, when he'd been watching her shyly in the library, she hadn't seemed like the addict type, either. He breathed deeply, adjusted his glasses, feigning calmness while he was rocked violently between panic and disbelief.

"Okay." Two all-purpose syllables to steady a situation, at least hypothetically. Thoughts raced along with his blood. Why was she cutting herself? Why did the acceleration of the time it took to heal them matter? And what did any of that have to do with whatever she'd been shooting? Or what had almost come through the window of his car? There had to be more to this, but even in her current state – no, _especially _in her current state – the chance that she would disclose anything more was very slim indeed. He decided to try another tactic. "Is there anything I can do." It came out fatalistically, although he'd attempted to sound stable and altruistic. Funny how he could never express anything correctly to her.

"I don't think so." Irrationally, the fact that the bitterness in her tone was directed at herself rather than at him didn't relieve him at all. He would have let her denounce and condemn him, despite the darker part of him which screamed out in protest against being accused of crimes he'd never committed. He may have been a perfect stranger, who by immaculate chance came to be involved in this circumstance which stretched beyond his range of vision. He would readily rebel against all the sense in the world and take the blame himself for all of Brigitte's failings. There was no way to convey this in words, but he hoped that his sad smile could carry some of his message across. He reached out his hand, which she hesitantly took, and he helped her stand up again.


	3. Symptom

Symptom

"Didn't I tell you to stop calling them?" he asked sternly, but the underlying boredom in his voice was all too apparent. He'd gotten so used to the hours he spent in this incredible monotony, interspersed with brief breaks of hastened, lascivious activity which more often than naught resulted in a transaction of the patient's fix of choice. Not every aspect of Tyler's unorthodox and seemingly innocuous occupation entertained him, certainly not moments like this when the little blonde girl was being especially clingy, but it all seemed to balance out for him. After all, he didn't need a college degree to pretend to help young women recover from drug addictions only to indulge them in the very same things he'd told them to let go of. He didn't need a college degree to fuck them in the darkness of the debris-strewn basement, or, when he was feeling reckless, in their institutionalized beds with the sheets that scratched and metal legs that creaked. He was giving them what they wanted, what they craved, what Alice denied them – it was a twisted sort of kindness. He had to suppress a snide, satisfied smile at his own ingenuity, or Ghost would undoubtedly notice. Sometimes her uncanny observational skills creeped him out, and he felt like he was dealing with something more than just a fourteen-year-old girl.

But right now, he had his migraine to remind him that he was, in fact, dealing with a fourteen-year-old girl.

"They yelled at me," said Ghost incredulously, holding the standardized black hospital phone and staring into the mouthpiece as if it would offer some explanation. But neither the telephone nor Tyler was about to console her.

"Figures. You _have_ been bothering them for two weeks straight," he said with softened sarcasm, rubbing at his temples.

"The man to whom she made her meager requests had never spoken a word against her! She was rightfully appalled!"

"Stop with the narration thing; it's really getting on my nerves." Tyler ran his hands through his hair. "You know, you're lucky I even allow you to stay up this late, never mind these monthly excursions to town to see the comics store and the library."

"_I'm _not lucky that you do this; _you _are."

Tyler looked at her thoughtfully. She did know about his drug dealing and other habits, after all, and she certainly was enough of a blabbermouth to tell Alice on him, or let it slip to Luke or Michael and allow the news to trickle up, so to speak. Whether she'd actually do it was another matter entirely. Who was to say Stockholm Syndrome hadn't begun to kick in during the year that had passed since Ghost, then known to the faculty by her real name, Miranda, arrived here with her burned-to-a-crisp grandmother? Still, he didn't want to risk it, so they kept up these flimsy agreements, which had somehow formed within the gaps of their botched, unlikely friendship. Or was it more of an alliance? Tyler couldn't say. All he wanted right now was to get rid of this girl for a while, so he could go satisfy himself with some other ones. Was it natural to have a libido like his, which got kick-started primarily by intense boredom? He supposed that he should be the last one to ask about "natural" or "normal," considering his bizarre and predatory lifestyle, which seemed almost to melt from his role as the caretaker to his role as the gratifier just as day melted into night. It itched, he scratched, and that was it.

"I think it's time for you to go to bed."

The towhead, after a moment of indignation, acquiesced and jumped out of the stool Tyler kept for her behind the front desk. She took a few steps, shuffling her feet, and then turned around to give her guardian the hint of a faintly threatening smile.

"Goodnight, Tyler. And don't forget."

-----

Jeremy clicked through Brigitte's file, as if trying to decipher the green text. The similarities in the various titles and subjects were obvious enough -- the girl had never ventured out of the "Mediaeval and Occult" section, at least not that he recalled. He tapped absently at the keyboard and leaned back in his chair, sweeping his gaze over the monitor and across the library. It was vacant, with the exception of some guy who looked as though he was cramming for a test at the college the library was joined with and had no other silent refuge in which to do it.

Jeremy still didn't have the funds necessary to attend the one university he wanted to go to, although he'd already been accepted. Thanks to his family situation, he'd had to delay his life two years, and who knew how much longer it would take. He'd watched the few friends he had move on and move out, and he was stuck here, working two low-paying jobs so he could one day do the same. It was tedium, the proverbial daily grind, but he at least knew how to amuse himself. Reading was how he spent a large portion of his time, especially on the job. It was a _library_, so it wasn't like his boss would mind too much.

If she knew. He had to smile a little to himself. He'd seen the woman who was supposed to be his boss maybe twice since he'd taken this job last year. Apparently, she had taken a permanent vacation to Hawaii. The college's superintendent did check on him once in a blue moon, but he always shifted in his seat and tapped away when he arrived, feigning productivity, or pretended like he'd been sorting books for hours when, in reality, he'd simply shot out of his chair when he knew the boss of bosses was coming up the stairs. The superintendent had no real reason to keep his eye on Jeremy. The young man with his diminutive stature, rectangular glasses, collared shirts, and flyaway hair hardly posed a threat the productivity of the library. He just didn't seem like the type to purposefully avoid work.

Oh, of course not. Never.

The books were all related to diseases that had died out centuries ago, or else mythology. The discrepancy between the two subjects Brigitte had been researching confused him. Of course, Bloodletting had an immediate tie to reality, if Brigitte's timed healing was any indication. The intentional release of blood, usually by administering leeches to the patient's skin, was done in the assumption that the disease was carried in the "bad blood," and that the leeches could differentiate. This branch of medical science was so outdated it was almost laughable. Not all diseases were of the blood, and even if they were, there was no such thing as partial infection. But Brigitte had obviously not been using leeches, seeing as how access to them would be difficult in the dead of Canadian winter, and her scars, by the looks of them, had been made with a smooth, sharp edge, most likely a knife. Removing leeches from the equation changed everything, though, didn't it? And he was sure that the doctors of the Dark Ages hadn't been concerned with acceleration in healing time. So why was Brigitte taking note of how long it took? The fact that she'd done it over and over again also disconcerted him. Shouldn't that be a consistent, unchanging factor? But she had said that she was healing faster with the passage of time. So this change had to be a symptom. At this point, he encountered a concrete wall at the end of his logical thinking. It was no great mystery that contracting a debilitating illness would prolong healing time, but if Brigitte's cuts were healing faster, she must have the opposite of a debilitating illness. Her cells were multiplying faster because of it to form the new tissue of the scars. But he'd never heard of an illness that would cause bodily processes to speed up. It was counterintuitive and strange.

But Brigitte _must_ have some disease, or at least believe that she did, because otherwise she would time her cuts without bothering to research bloodletting. He presumed that she had been simultaneously attempting to "bleed out" the disease, but releasing such an insubstantial amount of blood would hardly help, even assuming that phlebotomy was effective.

The drug also had to be taken into consideration. There was definitely a connection between the drugs and the cuts, and thus, the disease. She'd said she'd dosed twice _because _of the rapid healing, so maybe the drug was being used as an antidote. But she was still healing faster in spite of this antidote, so it must not be working, or at least taking less of an effect as time went on. Her body had gotten so used to the stuff that it no longer had any effect.

That confirmed the addiction hypothesis.

This was _all _a hypothesis, of course. Jeremy had merely extrapolated from what he knew about Brigitte's situation with basic medical knowledge and his own library research. He'd never know for sure unless Brigitte confirmed it.

This meant that it was reasonable to believe that he wouldn't.

-----

When all the eyes of the sidewalk seemed to snap around and fix on her, Brigitte couldn't help but draw a sickened parallel to the sudden attention Ginger garnered when her transformation had almost reached its peak. Except for the fact that, as always, Brigitte dreaded the very same things that her sister reveled in, and she shrunk away from the stares and into her dark coat. She thought she heard Ginger whisper some snide observation on this fact in her ear, but it was just the cold wind. The morning was no less frigid than the night that came before it – if warmed somewhat by the blinding sun. Whenever the clouds passed over it, she shivered, watching her breath in the still air. They were full of what Brigitte anticipated to be bitter, icy rain, so she hurried towards her destination on frozen joints, still unsure of exactly what and where it was. She was in no great hurry to see Jeremy again – he was working a Saturday shift through the morning, no doubt drifting through all the stages of boredom at his desk while the harsh sunlight filtered through the unclean windows. She sighed. Unclean windows, unclean world. She fingered her scars absently, thinking about Jeremy's home. That had been clean, at least.

_They're all the same._

Ginger's biting accusation resonated oddly in her mind. Her newfound rebellion against her sister's opinions, which had until not that long ago continued to inform her own and govern her actions, still shocked her somewhat.

Ginger didn't know everything.

She barely caught the smile that formed at the thought which she had never finished in its entirety. She'd been so … blind. Both of them had been. And while the world was far from new – Brigitte had gotten tired of it in under a decade – at least it wasn't Bailey Downs anymore. Everything outside that dismal town was brutal, a place in which she struggled to survive, but at least it was separate.

Maybe Jeremy was different.

She stopped in front of an alleyway strongly reminiscent of the one she'd passed the night before. This time, no growl emanated from the dark depths and caused a relentless prickling of fear along her spine, but she wasted no less time in leaving it.

_You've been going in circles for a while now. Where do you want to end up?_

_It's not like I can stop._

_You have quite the list of things you can't stop doing, don't you, B?_

Sometimes she didn't know if it was truly Ginger who finished her thoughts. The logical part of her screamed out that it was Brigitte herself on both ends of her internal conversations, and another part wanted to believe that something of her sister had survived, and that some fragment of this illusionary Ginger was real.

Her hands had gone numb with cold while she hadn't been paying attention, so she ducked into the nearest shop. Comics. Seemed as if life had decided upon a theme these days, and she couldn't escape the scruffy-haired man no matter where she went. She slipped towards the farthest shelves and hid herself there, studying the covers.

"They haven't got it in yet …" The voice was small, disappointed, and oddly familiar.

"Can't you find something else?" replied a slightly irritated male voice.

"But I _need_ to know what fate befalls –"

"Ghost. There's nothing I can do about it, but there's tons of other stuff here, so why don't you just go … look at it, okay?" Brigitte poked her head above the shelf just far enough to see a blond man, presumably the one who had just spoken, gravitate towards the register. The little girl trotted away, and her sullen expression turned to a curious one as she turned around the back shelf and saw Brigitte, who gave her a blank look and became instantly interested in a horror comic. This didn't appear to have much of an impact on the strangely named Ghost.

"I've never seen you here before," she said with an overjoyed fascination which made Brigitte squirm internally. "You're into comics?"

Brigitte flicked her eyes down at the girl, made no attempt to hide her disgust, and continued to flip through the book she'd picked up.

"Oh, I forgot. My name's Ghost," she added, apparently unfazed by Brigitte's cold shoulder. "What's yours?"

She didn't see the harm in telling her.

" … Brigitte."

"I never see other girls here. Usually." Ghost gave the brunette an appraising look, then turned her attention to the shelves, and fidgeted while visually perusing them. She seemed to pass judgment on all but one, which she eagerly snatched. "It was nice to meet you, Brigitte." She held up a hand in farewell as she stepped backwards, then spun around and strode purposefully towards the blond man she'd walked in with. He was practically poured over the counter, making very deliberate eye contact and sporadic conversation with the cashier. The interruption more than slightly bothered him, but he stepped back all the same, hands in the pockets of his jeans.

"You found something else?"

"I follow thirty-two different series," she chirped, apparently very pleased with herself. He reached into his back pocket to pull out a wallet. When he looked up, he noticed Brigitte in the back corner. She saw some glint of predatory curiosity, and hid herself behind the shelves again. She had become bizarrely accustomed to that look in the months since she'd been infected, but it hadn't made it any more comfortable. She waited until the bell hanging atop the door emitted its telltale ding, and stayed for a few more minutes, to put distance between the strange pair and herself. She didn't like the way the girl's searching, dark eyes fixed on her, and she liked her presumed guardian's stare even less.

The walk back to Jeremy's apartment would have been uneventful had Ginger not decided to suddenly appear, causing Brigitte to momentarily second-guess the mechanics of the illusion. She'd previously been under the impression that Ginger could only appear when she was alone. But, she realized as she turned sharply around and looked up and down the street, nobody else was around. It was unsettling.

_How long has it been since you could go a whole week without dosing? _Ginger gave her that half-accusatory, half-warmly concerned expression from beneath the hood of that familiar black sweatshirt.

Brigitte found herself responding aloud. The initial surprise this caused her subsided almost instantly. Everyone assumed she was crazy, anyway. Why not prove them right? In any case, it wasn't like anyone was there to hear her, or take notice in any way.

"I can't help it, Ginger. If I go for longer than three days, I start to lose it. Even before then, it gets bad …"

_You're beginning to feel it now, aren't you? That isn't a good sign. The monkshood's taking less and less effect, even though you need it more and more. _

"I can go home and shoot some more of it, and cause it to become even more ineffective, or I can attempt to go without. It doesn't seem … as if either of those options are without consequences."

_It's your call, B. I'd recommend taking more of it. If the change starts to show, it'll mean that he's getting closer again. _

Ginger was right. While Brigitte was confident that if she willed herself, she could abstain from the stuff for a few days, it would only put her in danger. Jeremy, too.

_Oh? Are you worried about him, now? Just a little while ago he was an obstacle in your grand plan. What was it, again? Oh yeah, you don't have one._

Imaginary or not, Ginger did always have a knack for getting under Brigitte's skin. She growled lowly in frustration, which only provoked Ginger's laughter.

_Look at you! You're getting into it, already._

"At least I'm doing something about it. I don't remember _you_ spending five hours every night in the library looking for a cure."

_There __isn't__ one, Brigitte. And you seem to be having a very hard time understanding that._

"So, what, I'm supposed to write this whole thing off as inevitable? Pretend like there's nothing I can do when I don't know about any other possibilities yet?"

When Ginger's voice responded, it was low and dissonant. _You know all about the true nature of the curse. You saw it with your own two eyes that night, not so long ago. That's how it's going to be, Brigitte. That's exactly how it's going to be, and you know it._

"I don't care," said Brigitte in an equal tone. Despite the serious nature of this conversation, she was already getting bored with it. She knew that Ginger was adamant in all of her decisions until forcibly proven otherwise, and it was beyond pointless to argue with her.

_You're still that scared little girl you were when I was alive._

"I'm not scared of this."

_It's beginning._

-----

The apartment was silent, save for the faint whirring of cheap kitchen appliances. Still, she stepped cautiously through it, as if expecting to be confronted by the spectacled man at every turn. She heaved the chipped window upwards, feeling her not-entirely-human muscles flex under her sleeves, and grasped around blindly for the vials. Relief flooded through her as her hand came to rest against cold glass, and she peeled off the edge of the tape to bring the vial up to her face. Her body involuntarily reacted to the sight of the purple liquid, and she hastily shoved the window-frame back down, this time unconcerned with the thud it made as it hit the windowsill.

Syringe. Where was the syringe? Brigitte's mind leapt back without regard for chronological order through the last few days. One syringe was back at the motel, its needle buried in unwashed carpet. It had, in all likelihood, been discovered already, and dismissed as a common occurrence. Those places were practically offices for dealers, anyway. She had two syringes, didn't she? Think, Brigitte … the other syringe … was in her bag. Of course.

The realization galvanized her into a frantic run. She made her way to Jeremy's room, and then to the only bathroom, which was central to the apartment and just as neutrally furnished as the rest of it. She sat down on the edge of the off-white bathtub and poked the needle, after missing several times in panic, into the top of the vial and pressed down. She released it, watching the body of the syringe filling in a way which made her insides stir with sick uneasiness and violent need. She tied the makeshift tourniquet around her upper right arm this time, opting to give the other vein a rest, and clumsily but purposefully steadied the needle at the crook on the inside of her elbow. The needle sunk painlessly through layers of skin, releasing the poison into her bloodstream.

The relief dosing always infused in her evaporated when she heard the ascending footsteps. Without thinking, and perhaps as a result of acquired survival instincts, she twisted on the faucet. The stream of cold water masked the hurried activity of screwing the cap back on the vial and shoving it, along with syringe and tourniquet, back into her bag. She was deeply thankful that her other clothes were still in there, too. Glancing up from the bathtub to the space between the door and the floor, she ran her hand under the faucet to feel the gradual change in temperature.

"Brigitte?"

"I'm taking a bath," she called, equally thankful that she'd had the sense to lock the door.

"Okay. I'm going to go get some lunch for us. Do you like Chinese?"

_He's such a … dork._

_Not now, Ginger._

Brigitte tried to answer without betraying the fact that the usual reaction to dosing monkshood was beginning to take effect. "Sure."

The narrow space which had been shadowed by Jeremy's feet cleared, and as the footsteps faded in volume, Brigitte sighed and looked down at the slowly rising water. She wanted to avoid looking suspicious if she could help it, and besides, she hadn't bathed in more days than she was comfortable with. She absently removed her clothes, starting, as she always did, with her socks, and slipped into the lukewarm water. She'd taken showers in Bailey Downs ever since Pamela had instigated the new order of personal hygiene ("Girls, I think its time for both of you to take a step towards adulthood …") which included a strict policy of showers-only since Ginger had turned thirteen. Brigitte hadn't minded what she saw as an insignificant transition, but her sister had rebelled against Pamela for the sake of rebellion and continued to take baths instead of showers for quite a while. Feeling the now-steaming water collect around her was oddly nostalgic, but not in a way that was of very great consequence.

_Trip down memory lane, huh, B?_

Ginger was sitting on the toilet lid, fixing Brigitte with a bored stare.

"Back already?" was all Brigitte could say, and she muttered it, pulling up her knees to hide her nakedness.

_So they aren't just on your arms,_ Ginger noted coolly, resting her head on her hands. _God, if you don't watch out, you might end up just being one big scar someday._

"Very funny," Brigitte said in a prickly tone, but she couldn't help looking down at the tangled mess of scabs and scars herself. The sight made her grimace, despite her hard-earned stoicism in the face of such things. She added in a low voice, "At least I'm _doing _something about it." The comment appeared to have a harsh effect on Ginger, who eyed her angrily, but responded in an even voice.

_You won't want to stop it, Brigitte. Not after you see what you it can do._

"I'm not in the mood for this." Brigitte held onto her knees in the water, as if fearing that they'd drift away. She clenched her eyes shut and waited for the drug's effect to pass. When it did, she found herself exhausted, uncurling to lie motionless in the hot water. The combination of the fatigue of the dosage and the heat of the bathroom coerced her into a strange torpor, which transitioned lazily into sleep.

She couldn't have been lying there for very long before she felt the water level rise to her mouth. As if receiving a shock of electric current, she sat up immediately, lunged forward, and twisted off the faucet right as the water was lapping at the very top of the tub. Overflow averted. She sighed, and sat back again, wondering for a moment what to do about this situation. She grabbed for a bottle of rather bland looking shampoo, and without much conscious thought began lathering some of it up in her palms. Absolutely nothing had formulated in her mind as the bubbles began to rise and she reached up to scrub the stuff into her greasy hair. She attempted to lay everything out in front of her.

The facts:

Ginger Fitzgerald contracted the curse from an unidentified lycanthrope approximately one year ago.

Brigitte Fitzgerald contracted the lycanthrope virus from Ginger Fitzgerald when attempting to lure her to what, at the time, was thought to have been a permanent cure.

Brigitte Fitzgerald killed Ginger Fitzgerald (a knife between the ribs, to be precise), when Ginger Fitzgerald had been completely consumed by the wolf she'd become.

Brigitte Fitzgerald ran away from Bailey Downs.

Brigitte Fitzgerald discovered that monkshood was not an actual cure, but merely a retardant of the symptoms and eventual change.

Brigitte Fitzgerald attempted to understand the virus, testing the effects it was having on her body.

Brigitte Fitzgerald met Jeremy, a shy librarian, in a town she was staying in briefly in her relentless escape from another unidentified lycanthrope.

Another lycanthrope which had, in all likelihood, previously been Jason, the boy Ginger had infected through sexual transmission of the curse.

Brigitte Fitzgerald had overdosed on monkshood the same night when she knew the second unidentified lycanthrope was in the immediate vicinity.

Jeremy had discovered her overdosing.

Jeremy had attempted to "get her help."

Jeremy had not truly gotten her help because she'd successfully intimidated him into not doing so.

Running over the same ground over and over again hardly provided any sort of clarification, or opened up any unexplored ideas or possibilities. It was more akin to rumination that anything else, and to her, rumination was the opposite of progress. She frowned to herself, even as she re-traced her mental steps.

Jeremy did not know the true nature of Brigitte's affliction.

There were three possible courses of action which could result from this. The first, and most likely, was that Jeremy would eventually take her to some sort of hospital. The doctors would obviously have no idea what was wrong with her, and she knew it couldn't go well from there. Euthanasia or endless scientific testing. Not pleasant options. The second and considerably less likely path, was that Jeremy would in time, and entirely on his own, discover what was wrong with her. He would either continue to let her stay, or he would make her leave. She was much more comfortable with this series of events, given that she remained completely unattached to him, emotionally. She almost scoffed at the very idea of it. When the time came, it would be easy to leave him behind. The simplest thing she'd ever do. She was sure of it.

But there was another path, one so ridiculous and unlikely that it almost made her doubt her own intelligence to contemplate it, and that was one aspect of her identity that usually went unchallenged.

Jeremy discovers, or Brigitte informs him, of Brigitte's affliction, and they both attempt to find a cure. A real, definite, final cure.

She'd expected that thought to spur a snide, fatalistic comment from Ginger, but, as she suddenly realized, the apparition was nowhere to be seen. She slunk back down into the water, which had lost some of its heat by that time, and guarded the thoughts than spun off from that concept. Ginger was always watching and listening, even if she didn't make her presence readily obvious. It made for some judgmental encounters at the end of the day, after everyone else in Brigitte's makeshift life had faded away. Ginger was always after blood, and Brigitte supposed that Jeremy and her strange relationship with him made for an easy target. He was the sort of person that Ginger might have formed a precarious friendship with before her transformation, and ignore or carelessly toy with during it. He didn't hold a candle to all the obnoxious, selfish men that she'd been attracted to, and Brigitte couldn't help but see that as a good thing. Ginger's bizarre harem had consisted entirely of the sort that both Brigitte and her sister had despised for fifteen years, and Brigitte, for the first time, contemplated that perhaps this was because Ginger found it easier to manipulate people that she didn't respect. Ginger obviously regarded Jeremy as a pushover, and Brigitte would just as easily share this opinion, but she couldn't be sure. For the moment, he was all that was keeping her from a considerably worse situation. Whether he was doing this out of naivety or genuine compassion, she couldn't be sure.

However, at the moment, that didn't really seem to matter.


End file.
